Family Reunion

The following statements were made by each of five people at a family reunion. They are each referring to one of the other four people (in other words the person being referred to in the first statement, Claire, is making one of the other statements). Can you determine who made each statement? Assume that all parents are married and that all married couples are heterosexual, married only once, still married, and attending together.

Answer

1. Susan
2. Roger
3. Danielle
4. Claire
5. Melissa

Explanation:
Statement 2 has to be spoken by Roger, since he is the only man.
Since there is only one marriage implied here, Statement 1 must be made by Susan, Roger's wife, making Claire Roger's sister.
Claire must be the one referring to her niece Melissa in Statement 4. Melissa could say Statement 3, but that would leave Danielle referring to herself in Statement 5. Therefore Melissa says Statement 5 and Danielle says Statement 3.Hide

That's the solution if you assume that these
five people are the only ones present at the reunion.
It's the solution I refer to as 32145, where the
code means that the person named in a given statement makes
the next statement in the code sequence (e.g., Roger, referred to
in #3, makes statement #2, Mellissa, named in #4 makes #5, and Danielle,
named in #5, makes statement #3 (the sequence loops around at the end).

If you allow for other, unnamed people to be present,
then other solutions are possible, though perhaps far-fetched.
E.g., 32415 and 32451 require first-cousin marriages.
In 32415, Roger and Susan are the parents of Danielle and Claire,
Melissa is the daughter of Susan's sibling, and has
an unnamed brother who is the husband of Claire, his first cousin.
In 32451, Roger and Susan are the parents of Claire and an unnamed son,
who is married to his first cousin Danielle, the sister of Melissa.
32514 and 32541 are also possible.
In 32514, Roger and Susan are the parents of Melissa,
Danielle is Susan's sister and is married to an unnamed brother
of both Claire and Roger.
In 32541, Roger and Susan are the parents of Claire and an unnamed brother.
Danielle is Susans sister, and her husband's sibling is the parent of Melissa, who
is married to Claire's brother.
But the original solution is certainly the cleanest one, since it requires no loose ends.

dewtell, I don't think you read the problem carefully. The second line states that there are only five people in the mix and they are all talking about one of the other four. I will, however, commend you on your very thorough analysis of this teaser.

I think I read the problem carefully enough.
You never quite actually say unambiguously that these
are the only five people present. The first line says
the statements were made by "each of five people at a family
reunion," which is consistent with others being present.
If you had said "each of the five people" then it would have
been clear that no others were present. The second sentence
says that "They are each referring to one of the other four people..."
but this can be read either way, as one of the other four people speaking,"
or one of the other four people present.
In any case, it's a nice teaser that I had fun solving. Once you figure out that Roger must be
making statement 2, there are only 6 possible orderings of the statements,
so it's possible to examine them exhaustively looking for interpretations
that could make them consistent
(unlike the other family puzzle that had 8 speakers).

Now now, Dewtell, I'm sure that if Cliff says that no one cares what you have to say, that he's done his research on the subject and sent out a questionaire to everyone on the planet, with the question "Do you care what dewtell has to say? y__ n__" (mine must have gotten lost in the mail, because I never saw it). You just can't argue with good data, you know. By the way, I also have one of these teasers with FIFTEEN people speaking, but I haven't had the time or the gumption to solve it myself yet.